Dr. Cantankerous Jeckyll & Mr. Masochist Hyde

I get depressed & irritated by Benjamin, a mere fool in love, and a creepy stalker. Repetition of the same three Simon & Garfunkel songs over and over is annoying: the 'symbolism' behind the scuba diving, the disjointed perception of sounds and voices, etc. seem unrealistic.

The rating reflects the movie's politically correct quotient. Quality performers meet supposedly deep message. Real juries are allowed neither to carry their own experiences nor to consider evidence not presented at trial. The movie includes clichéd, implausible characters, and a foreseeable twist (a 11-to-1 vote changing into 0-to-12)! Juries exist in order to allow the cold letter of the law to be broken, or temporarily suspended. If jurors were so one-dimensional, mindless and easy to persuade, courts should certainly keep them afar.

Upon its release I took my kids to see it and was drawn to this bizarreness, but as the best critics are fond of saying in their reviews, your taste does change as you get older. A recent viewing verified the flaws in here for me. In the 1980s chaos plus frantic equalled fun, now the formula works only for fans of ¨Baby reindeer,¨ weird animations and/or the like.

Variety included it among the 100 Best Films, yet Variety's own critic (Joe Leydon) called it ¨A sluggish, charmless misfire in which even the most appealing players -- must try too hard to make anything close to an engaging impression.¨

“If someone threw up at one of my screenings, it would be like a standing ovation.” (John Waters himself said it)

I still wonder what was in the box of the oriental man and, more disturbingly, what he planned to do with it as far as the beautiful wench was concerned! Despite it being 57 years old I feel this not-for-all-tastes dramedy hasn't lost its weird sense of humour.

The title character is depicted as too much of a hero here, but it's an alright film with a fine lead performance.

The story is flat and uninteresting at first, and eventually predictable. Nun searches God, finds wealthy husband instead. The only song I eally enjoy is 'Climb every mountain,' though Mr. Rodgers was the genius who also composed Love Me Tonight, Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, Pal Joey etc etc

Contrary to other Iranian directors (Farhadi, Panahi), whose films move at a fast pace, Kiarostami's are slow-moving, fundamentally dull and unmemorable. They feature interesting concepts for sure, but very bland execution. Don't reach any kind of emotional depth for me.

As a supposed satire on the masses' infatuation with violence and murder, NBK delivers. The question is, it's a one-note samba. It repeatedly hammers the same point until we're bludgeoned into senselessness.

I won't call 'Parasite' boring, but if you have watched South Korean films before, you may not find 'Parasite' extraordinary. It is like any other above-average movie. My favorite from that side of the world is Kim Ki-duk's '3-Iron', a story spoken with almost no dialogue. Very poetic. After watching Parasite, I realize that Hollywood isn't really so boring and uninspired...

While the message is clearly obvious, the point could have been made without sacrificing the childhood of these non-actors (if you know the real story of what became of those who participated in the film, you will know exactly what I mean!). There are blatant homo/pedophile scenes with arguable nudity of young children along with scenes where the leading pixote is made to witness and participate in explicit sexual acts.

Fans of deadpan humor do get chuckles out of this. All actors are horrible, and herein poor equals good. The funny stuff's embedded in long, painful, obvious sequences built around one-shot gags.

A film must be enjoyable. It can be functionally slow, but it shouldn't ignite the feeling of wanting it to be over. This is where some films (like Dielman) soar. In 2022 the #1 spot in the Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time Critics' Poll replaced Hitchcock's Vertigo with Jeanne Dielman, which previously hadn't appeared in the top 10 in any previous decade and which apparently nobody had heard of until a few years ago. The circumstance only induces me to cancel my signature of the S&S magazine.

Roger Ebert gave it four stars and compared it to 2001, A Space Odyssey. As a compliment. He said Malick was taking on the whole question of what life is and what it means. Wow. How the Academy Awards thought it merited a Best Picture nomination is still a mystery.

Paul Thomas Anderson's movies are HORRIBLE (except "There Will Be Blood"), including "Boogie Nights" (Overrated. Third act is as porny as corny A.F.), "Magnolia" and "The Master." 100% pretentious TRASH. Absolutely.

Lars Von Trier is a trash person, and Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves are dustbin classics. Trier is a sadist, a born manipulator, someone who imposes his individuality on that of others, also on a mass of spectators It is exactly this director-audience relationship that Trier appreciates most.
Perhaps even more important, he has enormous control and dominance of the media surrounding cinema, as we could see in the release of Dogma, or in the legends that surrounded his eventual Palme d'Or winning.
Trier WASN'T born for the profession he pursues.

I'm a Julia Roberts fan, but she wasn't the one saving grace in this unimaginative and tiresome comedy that puts everybody to sing when it runs out of any ideas. Go check out a William Powell/Myrna Loy comedy instead!

I wasn't looking forward to this film. I hated Hunger, I hated Shame, so I wasn't expecting this to be outstanding. I was right. I know this is a depiction of the horrors of slavery, but we only get relentlessness and horror. The TV series ¨Roots¨ was fine. Yet the best depiction of abolition is Walter Avancini's ¨Abolição¨ a TV-Globo production.

French Art Film recommended for viewers without brains.
I'll explain my bias.
(i) This movie defines the nature of man as consisting of "blood and fornication." The plot takes place in isolated Africa in the Foreign Legion.
(ii) There's homo eroticism galore; extreme emotional closeness and attraction between men, though never realized with actual sex.
(iii) Message reads: ¨Brutal Darkness Is the Essence of Man.¨

As I'm not particularly into Drag Culture, what should I say?
Hairspray (2007), with John Travolta as Edna Turnblad, wasn't funny at all.
Priscilla, the Queen of the Desert (1994) had funny bits, with Abba and Terence Stamp.
Ed Wood (1994) was excellent;
Robin Williams was as fine in Uma Babá Quase Perfeita (1993) as Dustin Hoffmann was in Tootsie (1982)
Vítor ou Vitória? (1982) was an OK remake of an ancient German masterpiece, Viktor Und Viktoria (1933)
A Gaiola das Loucas (1978) was funnier on stage than on the silver screen.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) ditto.
Pink Flamingos (1972) was lousy.
Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), in which male members of Monty Python play women during sketches, was a landmark series, though uneven;
In The Milton Berle Spectacular (1962) Milton Berle frequently played characters in drag.
Quanto Mais Quente Melhor (1959) was memorable with Daphne & Josephine.
Glen ou Glenda? (1953) is sheer movie folklore.
Will & Grace (1998) was successful, but I've never watched it.
And RuPaul's Drag Race (2009) had spin-offs like Drag Race UK, Canada, Holland, All Stars, etc

Linklater's works are as awful as his Dennis Hopper-like toupee

From beginning to end, this is a lesson on how NOT to make movies. No kidding, Kidman: it exemplifies bad acting, bad directing, bad pseudo 'low key' photography, bad pseudoperiod sets, waste of money, feature-sized video clip aesthetics , and last but not least poor storytelling, or rather non-existing storytelling. The Tim Burton-like 'dark' cinematography is technically incompetent. The visual effects are expensive, I'll say that. Moulin Rouge is an homage to post-modern grotesquery. Simply grotesque , and its 'Toulouse' character, simple debauchery. Obnoxious.

I was never able to figure out why Sandrine Bonnaire won a César for best actress and rave reviews for a performance that left me feeling totally indifferent to the character and her fate. I've seen several films by Agnès Varda and this one is pretty much what I expected... Unfortunately so. While Varda is loved by many, her films have a non-filmic quality. The stuff artsy folk often like. Her style just doesn't excite me. Possibly because the subject matter is often so... mundanely vagabond.

The music is repetitive, especially the reprises of 'We're off to see the Wizard') but the bright Technicolor of Oz and the spirit of the thing wins over its audience.